Current Pairing: former DeathWing (1x2x1)


The first blue streaks of sunrise paint the wall above the stove, misting a mahogany braid in melancholy hues. No one should be awake at this hour, but here he is. The kitchen is silent, accusing and still, echoing with memories that he is preparing to leave behind. Duo Maxwell clenches his teeth around another sob, not wanting to wake Heero. Not wanting Heero to see him. Because if Heero sees him like this, soul torn and broken, he will beg Duo to stay. And Duo doesn't think he can find the words to say no any more than he can find the words to say goodbye.

The note shakes in his hand, fingers trembling uncontrollably. He pins it to the countertop, staring down at the words that blur in his liquid sight. I'm leaving. I'm sorry. It sounds insensitive. Of course it does. How could he logically find the words to tell Heero, I love you, you're my soulmate, but I'm leaving you anyway. He can't leave that door open, can't leave Heero with the sort of heart-lifting hope that will just turn bitter as the years pass without mention of his name. Duo isn't coming back. He can't afford to.

He requested a mission off-colony, and the notice came through just past midnight that he is expected at the spaceport at dawn. Undercover drug infiltration. Deep undercover, the kind that prevented any contact with the outside world. He won't even have a check-in with Preventer until the six month mark. Expected time span was a year, at least, possibly up to five. And he'd asked for it.

And now… forgetting himself for a moment, he slams his fist into the counter, crumpling the note. Now he's going to walk away from Heero Yuy, the greatest love he's ever known. He can't stop himself. Snatching a pen out of the drawer, he stares down at the spineless piece of paper. Clinical. Sterile. Dragging a shuddering breath in through his nose, he scrubs away an errant tear, smoothes out the paper. The pen hovers above the page, tip quivering with his anguish.

A single drop trickles down his nose, cascading over the tip. It splashes onto the scribbled words, the only punctuation to his sorrow-filled I won't call.

He heaves his black duffel onto his shoulder, the bag he's been filling for months, and slips the note under one of the magnets on the fridge. Pressing his lips together to muffle the howl of grief, he shoves his feet into his boots and slips out the front door. He doesn't look back. He can't afford to.


The first month is a blur. The gang he's infiltrating is full of heavy hitters, with a beastly initiation ritual. He's been informed in no uncertain terms that he'll have to be doubly vigilant if he wants to protect his braid, which he refuses to cut off pre-emptively. He spends the first few weeks holed up in a nicer section of L2, not that there's really a nicer section. The days are a haze of long, grueling runs, regardless of the malfunctioning weather controls, and bruising sessions in the gym with the weights or a relentless trainer. At night he sinks into a bath with gritted teeth, massaging aching muscles and prodding gingerly at rupturing blisters.

He flops into a chair, flipping on the tv. Reception is shit on this hellhole of a colony, stations a mix of decades old reruns and spotty coverage of multi-colony news. But it's noise, something to fill the hollow emptiness of the apartment. He traces his fingers absently over the thorny black lines of the ink lining his forearm. The tattoo is still tender to the touch, finished just yesterday. Preventer would probably scold him if they caught wind of him appropriating a week of time to get a series of tattoos done… but he doesn't have a check-in for another six months, and he doesn't give a damn. And besides, it will help him fit his gang member image that much better. It has been a hell of a week. He decided on the design, found a relatively reliable shop that wouldn't leave him with an incurable disease, and then settled himself in for the week. Sitting in that chair for hours, every single day, gritting his teeth while he stared at the ceiling and repeated that it was for remembrance.

A ring of stars around his elbow separates the lower half of the sleeve from the top. Five stars – Wing ZERO, Deathscythe, Heavyarms, Sandrock, and Nataku. His forearm is branded with a tribal cross, the lines heavy and dark against his skin. The swirls around the cross are reminiscent of fire and smoke, names twined into the misty tendrils rising around the spread arms of the crucifix.

His bicep is splashed with color, his Gundam taking a knee on a ground marred by spilled blood. The thermal scythe arches over its shoulder, a brilliant emerald glow, planted by one gauntleted hand. In the other fist, Deathscythe holds a crumpled banner, pressed into the dirt by its knee. The banner trails across the splatters of crimson, twisted and tattered, branded with the solemn vow: death before dishonor. Duo pulls up his sleeve to stare at the image of his oldest friend, meeting its glowing green eyes, to fix his eyes on the secret that his Gundam conceals. In the shadow beneath the Gundanium figure, half-obscured by blood, there is a single wartime designation etched into the grit. HY01.

He will always carry Heero with him, a self-inflicted scar on his heart, and it is only fair that the world will see it too, if it ever cares to look.


Duo casually backhands one of the new members of the gang, his ebon-inked forearm flashing in the shadow of the abandoned warehouse. The young man falls to the ground, clutching his split cheek, as Duo carelessly adjusts his rings. It's been six months. He isn't making the progress that he intended, so he's stuck in this piss-poor excuse for a colony for at least another six. Probably, with the way things have been going, another year.

He doesn't see the point, honestly. There are always going to be gangs on L2, in the poverty-stricken sections of every colony. There are always going to be drug runners and mob bosses and weapons manufacturers. Taking down one gang and related drug ring, no matter how large, isn't going to solve the problem. It's going to create a void for another, meaner gang to rush in.

Slumping into a chair, he watches the kid get up, scrub the blood off his face, and slink away. He hates this shit. Having to blend in. Having to be an asshole. Resorting to the low-life, amoral bullshit survival techniques he used as a street rat. Not for the first time, his mind drifts to Heero. He wonders what his former lover would think of him now, holding court in a broken-windowed, boarded up building in the slums, draped across a make-shift throne of crates and blankets.

He managed to save his braid as he fought his way up through the ranks, ending up as Mischief's Second. He doesn't want to lead the gang – despite his goal of dismantling the illicit activities, he doesn't want to leave a group of street kids helpless and leaderless when he returns to earth. He tries not to think about that – what will happen when this mission is over, when he has leave to return to headquarters. Tries not to contemplate the blood on his hands, so much in six months, God only knows how much more by the time he can wash his hands of this assignment. Tries not to wonder if, should he ever meet Heero again, the other man will judge him for the lengths he had to go to in order to make his cover convincing.

He runs one hand through his messy bangs, pausing to re-align the half-dozen rings climbing the shell of one ear. A diminutive cross dangles from the lobe, replacing the one that used to hang from his neck. He hadn't dared bring it in with him – anyone with half a brain knows that possessions don't mean shit to a gang. If you have it, you'd better be ready to give your life to keep it. The only person excused from this is Mischief. You don't steal from the leader of the gang. Even Duo isn't exempt, though only the newbies try anything anymore. He is beginning to believe that attempting to pickpocket him is some sort of hazing ritual, since he appears vaguely non-threatening.

He is still smaller than most of the gang members, even at 20. Between the malnutrition and plague as a kid and the g-force from 'Scythe as a teenager, his growth as a child was drastically stunted. He is lethally muscled, not an ounce of fat on his slender frame, but swathed in layers of clothing he seems to be just another scrawny orphan. Which is one of the many reasons why new recruits end up with a broken wrist shortly into their initiation. Duo does his best to keep it clean, to cause easy breaks that will heal fast. He can't afford to refuse to discipline them – it would paint him as weak, raise questions as to why he is protecting them.

Scratching idly at his newest tattoo, he contemplates when I'll be able to leave. If he stays for much longer, he's going to run dangerously low on empty skin. Whenever he gets bored, he finds himself at the door of the tattoo parlor, tucking his gun into the small of his back and inking yet another memory into his skin. The latest is a jet black wolf howling at the moon. It's a harvest moon, sickly and yellow, like the eyes of the beast, with a tiny winged figure soaring in its shadow. He grazes fingers over that white-feathered blip and sighs. Fuck, but he regrets leaving.


When Duo wakes up sobbing from dreams of haunting, Prussian blue eyes, he knows it is time to go home. It's been a year and a half, far longer than it should have been. And he has kept his promises. He never called Heero. Not when his heart felt like it was going to stop in his chest from the agony of losing the Wing pilot. Not when he fought the urge by slinking into the dusky confines of the tattoo shop again. Each and every one of his tattoos has some reference to Heero, no matter how obscure. He has two full sleeves and a backpiece now, a testament to just how often the Asian man crosses his mind.

Logically, he is well aware that Heero will probably turn him down. Will refuse to let him past the front door, if he even opens it after peeking through the peephole bubble. Still, he can't keep himself from hoping. He has done as much destruction and sown as much disarray in the gang as he could. Mischief has lost a great deal of credibility – and that hurt too, since the young man reminded him so much of Solo. Would Solo be like that, if he had survived the plague? Or would he have gotten out, escape the sucking pull of poverty and drugs?

Preventer is recalling him, finally. Gave him leave a month ago to clean up the residue of his presence and then head home. He shoves his possessions into that infamous black duffle bag, now a faded, bleached brown color from sunlight and filth. The kids stop by in a steady trickle, saying goodbye. Some are genuinely upset to have him gone. He protected them, tried to keep them off the drugs they sold, tried to get them some scraps of an education. He was good for them, really. Some will be thrilled to see his back, desperately coveting the position of Mischief's Second. There isn't anywhere to go in the gang. You are either Mischief, Second, or nothing.

Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he works his way through the last farewells. Mischief is the last, greeting him at the door. They don't say anything. Don't mention what probably would have developed if not for the shadow of Heero, looming large as his ivory Gundam over Duo's soul. Duo quirks a tiny smile. Another regret. Another burden to bear. Finally, he holds out his hand. They clasp wrists, squeezing, bearing down until it brings a bittersweet ache. It's the only way to know they're alive. And Duo wonders if he'll ever know that he exists without the permanence of agony.

He leaves the warehouse without a second glance, feeling the weight of Mischief's solemn green eyes on his back. He doesn't look back. He can't afford to.


In the shuttle, he retrieves the battered metal box from his duffle bag. He'd retrieved it from its hiding space, deep in the haunted rubble of what used to be the Maxwell Church orphanage. People didn't go near it, whether out of superstition or respect for the former church, and he figured that those who passed it on to him could guard it better than he could.

Wrenching open the box, wincing at the protesting shriek of hinges, he reverently lifts his cross from the velvet-lined confines. He lifts it to his lips, pressing a kiss to the chilled silver surface as he murmurs a prayer. He wonders if they would be proud of him, Father Maxwell and Sister Helen. Wonders if Father would be pleased with the name he's made for himself, if Sister would be proud of the path he follows.

Sliding the chain around his neck, he shivers a little at the icy metal landing on his collarbones. Sister Helen's face floats across his vision. Would she be more disappointed by the fact that he loves a man, or the fact that he left that man behind?